Educate Me
So... the majority of you all know I sell computers for a living. I have yet to make the move to Mac, although I have made the conscious decision that my next laptop will be a macbook. (Sticking with PC for desktop tho).
Here's what I want to know: Why should someone (read: an average person, not a geek) pick Mac over PC, despite price difference (yes, there's a difference, as most people I talk to don't need the high end hardware, they're fine with $500-600 machines). What's new in Leopard? And what should I know about Macs to accurately use and portray them to customers?
Try to keep the mac fanboyness to a minimum, as I don't like bias. We all like to bash Microsoft, but try to stay neutral on this one :)
And despite the comp sci background, talk to me like I'm your grandma. I may know computers, but I want this to essentially be an argument anyone can read and understand, as I will be passing this info on... to just about anyone. Thanks!
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I'm not really sure how to
I'm not really sure how to approach this one beyond getting geeky, but I'll try and let my fanboiness sit on a low simmer.
Lets start off with a simple comparison. If you look at it as people only "need" $500 computers, I would start by recommending a Mac Mini, they run about $500-600, do everything an "average" user needs, and are comparable in price.
*fanboi warning*
The $500 windows computer likely comes with Vista Home Basic, the $649 Mac Mini comes with OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Leopard includes, Front-row, spaces, mail, ical, iphoto, safari, and itunes among other things. Windows Vista Basic comes with Internet Exploder, Mail, and some games. As far as I'm concerned, OS X is comparable to Windows Vista Ultimate.
*end fanboi warning*
OS X is designed around a user experience, and very task oriented. Its very easy to check your e-mail, add events to your calendar, maintain address books and browse the web.
Its more secure and less prone to crashing (I restart my macbook pro around once every 3 weeks).
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"The only thing more dangerous than a hardware guy with a code patch is a programmer with a soldering iron."
as a geek, i like the mac
as a geek, i like the mac better than pc now, though it took some getting used to, and a lot of the shortcuts still elude me, and there are still minor things that i think windows handles better
i would not recommend or convince my parents to use mac over pc, nor would i have them switch to linux of any sort; the differences in how things are handled are just too overwhelming i think.
though at the same time, i wouldn't wish vista on anybody either. in my eyes, it offers nothing but problems to most people.
my mom had to use it for quite a while on her new work computer, and suffered from the typical hardware, software, peripheral and driver problems
i upgraded by wiping vista for xp and everything is great again
anyway, i think people who would be able to switch to a mac would put in the interest to ask about them. i personally wouldnt try to convert someone who hadnt already looked into it a bit for themselves
p.s. when is futureshop getting leopard in stock :) not there earlier this afternoon
I have to agree that the
I have to agree that the differences can be tricky to point out, but you also have to remember that you have a much broader understanding of user-interfaces. In a lot of cases, people just want to be pointed to a web browser and a mail application. And they don't even get that specific. I've actually been asked, straight up, "how do I open the internet".
I also agree with the not pushing one over the other, I'll talk all day long about the advantages of mac over windows, but at the end of the day, its their decision to make. If they are interested in mac, then explain to them the differences, tell them it is a different operating system, and some things are easier to do than others (and vice versa), and let them make the decision.
Ultimately, in my experience, after having a conversation like above, most people will choose a mac after I go over the no-viruses and no-crashing. Sometimes it requires getting into Apple doesn't treat customers like criminals, but typically doesn't go that far.
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"The only thing more dangerous than a hardware guy with a code patch is a programmer with a soldering iron."
Ok...
So, so far, no one's said anything I didn't already know and/or tell customers. I've explained all of this, and yet few, to no one actually adopts.
So now I'll address Leopard. First off, Will: Yes, Future shop has Leopard. $129, but the truck delivering it was late for my store (Cambridge). I know Waterloo had them on time though. Apparently, we weren't allowed to sell it before 6 PM... I can't, nor will I try, to explain why.
So why are you all so eager to spend 130 bucks on this upgrade? All I've seen is this "Time Machine", which lets you recover information you shouldn't have deleted in the first place (and should've been backing up anyway), and the dock looks cooler. This is worth 130 bucks to you? What am I missing?
Randall Roberts
SOCIS President
a big thing for me is that
a big thing for me is that the finder (explorer equivalent) doesnt suck as much anymore
mail and ical look good enough that ill try them over thunderbird and no-cal now
normal people dont start backing up til something bad happens, and not even consistently at that. i suppose for time machine, having a simple enough backup/basic versioning tool that the average user will actually use it, is worth well over $130 if you lose even one day's worth of work. also, time machine sells external hard drives.
my other logic is that im going to get leopard at some point anyway (not waiting 2 years for the next version) so might as well get it now, since reviews on performance/stability are good
you're also addressing geeks on this forum so what do you expect? youre bound to find more early adopters here.
if ubuntu is good now to the point where its linux that humans can use, why the heck would any of you use it before now :)
boot camp will only work on leopard now, unless you already set it up in 10.4
unlike windows updates, the mac upgrades seem to get faster
rand, if you are selling XP to Vista upgrades, you should have no problem with this.
Leopard probably isnt necessary upgrade for most users, but certainly adds value to buying a new machine
guelph FS doesnt appear to have in stock yet still
god, i cant believe i wrote this fanboi post..
Thanks
This was surprisingly unbiased, I expected worse.
As for "rand, if you are selling XP to Vista upgrades, you should have no problem with this.", I don't sell Vista upgrades. Ever. In fact, I tell people that I'm selling a new compy to that if they have a copy of XP, we can install it overtop of Vista for them as a service. So there.
As a geek, I'm NOT an early adopter, I tend to wait for second or third generations. It tends to be cheaper and a better value. *Shrugs* to each his own though.
I'm glad there wasn't something I was totally missing though. Thanks for the input!
Randall Roberts
SOCIS President
NOTE: I didn't tend to be so
NOTE: I didn't tend to be so verbose, but here goes:
even at the hardware level, if you factored the OS out of the comparison. I think the (white) MacBook would come out tied or better price-wise than a major brandname laptop with the same specs. So let's say they're in the same ballpark.
What makes it better (still ignoring the OS)
- compact, light, easy to find _quality_ accessories.
- "stylish" and well designed -- They are beautiful machines, with far better industrial design.
- decent support -- it's never hard to find an apple repair centre. When you buy a laptop, it's easy to get hardware repairs done for the first year or so, but after that try find a replacement bezel for 2004 Compaq Awesome-o 200 and not get soaked. Far less mailing for repairs! Perhaps a non-issue so close to Toronto.
- when stuff goes wrong (i.e: discoloration problems with early MacBooks, there's a wider use base, and you tend to find out about the problems sooner) -- for instance if you had a Sony whatever, you'd probably not run into someone with the same machine, and figure you're in the same boat.
- Hardware is no longer that specialized. You can use off the shelf RAM/HDs in their machines without problems or voided warranties.
- The hardware warranty is a year. You can add two more years for 218$ bucks or so. You can do that anytime, doesn't have to be at the time of purchase, a nice way to put off a big initial investment.
- They have stores. You can take your computer to a store, and they will help you with. There's only one type of machine they deal with...
- Really nice (bright) displays...
- Decent resell value.
- Bringing S/W into the picture:
=======================
- OSX 10.4/10.5 are VERY good OSes. It's somewhere between *nix for technical quality and Windows for usability.
- It's weird at first: how do you do something? "the most obvious way possible"
- Everything is extremely well integrated, and has been for a long time. Windows has just jumped on this, but I don't think it's in the same league as OSX/iLife/iWork integration.
- It's nice to see a company that trusts you enough to buy their product that you don't have to call a 1-800 to use your computer 30 days past install, nevermind the "if you change too many components, buy another license issue".
- Parallels/Fusion/Bootcamp rule out the possibility being left without that "one app", common example: visio, MS project, etc.
- OSX is certified UNIX.
- Mac applications tend to cost between 80 and 200$ for students. "Core" applications like iLife/iWork are very reasonable when put alongside PC competitors
- Now's a good time to jump in. You buy a new Mac, you get Leopard, you get the new iLife (2 months old). iWork you can probably do without, but if not you get a 30 day trial and you can buy a student license for $80.
Career Wise
========
- Macs are gaining market share, development of Mac software is likely to become a skill in higher demand.
- We'll probably understand the Mach kernel before the Vista kernal anytime soon.
- Garageband will help you laydown beats and become a Killer MC.
- Macs have rekindled the shareware / < 20$ software category.
- Macs come with everything you need to develop OSX software, screensavers, etc.
- Apple Developer Connection is as good as MSDN, though less general. The free version is also sufficient.
Negative Stuff
=========
- The Mac way is: "spend money" -- The initial investment is reasonable, but you end up finding specialize applications unavailable elsewhere. Fink/MacPorts helps a bit with this, but you'll still find yourself tempted.
- Again money. You find yourself amassing more and more Mac stuff. I got my MacBook, then we got a keyboard/mouse for it. Some software. An iMac for the house. An apple router. A few more keyboards (wireless this time). More software, Another apple router to extend the network and provide music in the kitchen, I moved my music production over to Mac, etc. That doesn't even bring into account the two iPods and an iPhone we bought in the past 3 years. We've definately bought braces for all of Jobs' kids. Oh yeah, and that .Mac tax.
- No decent games on par with PC games, with a few minor exceptions.
- The image factor: Macs at the end of their product lifecycle go out style fast, remember how you just woke up one day and the "clamshell" iBooks looked retarded (OK, they always looked somewhat retarded). It somehow mutates your "early adopter" scene into something over-powering...
all in all, it's a mob/cult mentality. I have similar POV as to why the last two cars I've owned have been VWs and not less expensive North American/Japanese cars.
jc
PS: A very interesting thing is this: The ModBook: A tablet MacBook- http://www.axiotron.com/ This company buys off the shelf MacBooks and turns them into tablets. IMO speaks wonders about how successful the MacBook has been...
==
John Douglas Carter, MSc
Dept. of Computing & Information Studies
PhD Student, University of Guelph
glad to hear you're not
glad to hear you're not pushing vista :)
Technically this isn't first generation, 10.0 would be, but i know what you mean. 10.5.3 will definitely pack a lot of fixes over 10.5.0
Installed 10.5 yesterday, erase and install (after manual backup of all files on previous installation)
I did this because of being used to formatting windows machines not upgrading them. mac isnt innocent here either. all of the minor or major problems i've heard of with leopard have been with upgrade installs. it took very little time to get back up and running from the clean install and no real problems to speak of.
i still haven't brought myself to use mail and safari over thunderbird and firefox
Spaces is awesome. ive tried multiple desktop support in winddows/linux before, but this is very easy and powerful. even when on the comparatively claustrophobic 15" laptop screen instead of 22" external monitor, you mentally feel like you have much more room to work with. i could never bring myself to run apps full screen on a widescreen monitor until now.
it's subtly but very powerfully different than any other app switching (alt+tab, minimize/maximize, tiling, etc) next best thing to buying more monitors.
redesigned finder is a little weird because they've moved a few things around, after i was just getting used to it, but its definitely more robust than before, and seems to be handling networked machines better already (apparently multithreaded now so it wont hang the whole finder on a stalled connection)
Stacks are absolute garbage.
A lot of nice improvements to some system preferences, including network sharing which i have yet to try out with the other machines in the house (osx 10.3, xp and vista).
still need to find a home for time machine; need to juggle external drive (currently full of pre-leopard upgrade backup)
hard to say if there are definite OS speed improvements, since its a clean install, but its running just as well as before for sure.
Front row is more robust and more responsive now, basically matching apple tv's interface
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So for potential customers i can say
-a machine bought this week is better value than an identical piece of hardware bought a week ago; leopard adds some nice improvements
-for mac upgraders, theres not much reason i have experienced from a bug/issue point of view to wait for a future service pack. unless you plan to skip leopard completely, buying sooner is a better value than later from a months-of-use perspective.
-realistically this is only enough to push potential pc-to-mac converts maybe 10% further toward mac, but for those on the fence, maybe its enough. Spaces (and maybe time machine) are the big new features. Other things are relatively minor improvements. Leopard will undoubtedly accommodate some new hardware in the coming weeks or months, so machines that were built to run on leopard will likely show some additional improvements
One thing I'd like to add, a
One thing I'd like to add, a few people here at the office have done "Upgrade" installs, and every now and then they'll come to me asking if I'm having such and such a weird problem (one of my co-workers recently said his dock seemed kind of laggy).
I would highly recommend AGAINST doing an upgrade install. I would also recommend against doing an Erase and Install. Apple actually includes a feature called "Archive and Install", what it does is it moves your whole system out of the way (into a "Previous System" folder), then it installs a fresh copy of Leopard as if nothing was there. But when its done installing, it actually will copy your whole /User directory over, meaning Mail, iCal, Address Book, iTunes, and all your applications get copied back over from the old system.
The only issue with this type of install is that anything thats stored outside your /User folder, you'll have to manually restore. I had to re-install Synergy and Parallels, but otherwise everything worked right out of the box, and I have 0 of the "Upgrade" issues.
Dave
----
"The only thing more dangerous than a hardware guy with a code patch is a programmer with a soldering iron."
Actually, my Archive and
Actually, my Archive and Install moved a bunch of stuff in /Library too...
--
Andrew
Perhaps the best one-liner
Perhaps the best one-liner is a difference in philosophies:
Think about the iPod vs. virtually every other MP3 player. An iPod gets out of your way and lets you listen to music. It's a tool that's transparent in that you don't think "I'm going to use my iPod" but "I'm going to listen/manage my music".
OS X is the same way. It's designed to be as transparent as possible so you can get your work done. Think about how much "meta-computing" people need to do on Windows (especially related to security). Most of those sorts of tasks are automatic or perhaps 1 or 2 clicks.
Most Mac systems are usable with new applications for 5-6 years after purchase. Apple typically ensures that new OS's work on machines 5 years old. Also, how much does your typical customer spend on servicing due to viruses, spyware, windows reformats, etc. Virtually all "Mac" servicing is related to hardware, and not software, reducing costs. All in all, for most users you have to compare the cost of the system over a longer period of time, including reduced maintanance costs.
About Time Machine, it actually is a backup solution. If either of your drives dies, you can either recreate your TM backup from scratch, or restore from TM when you reinstall on the new drive. It's also not just a 'undeletion' utility - let's say I mistakenly deleted a few paragraphs from a document, if those paragraphs existed 1+ hours ago, I can recover them.
From a HW perspective, the use of magnets is killer. MagSafe is awesome, and you'll notice that the cases use magnets to keep shut. Apple's laptop cases tend to have the minimal amount of parts which can physically break. Also, for the most part I have a much easier time getting peripherals to work. Bluetooth devices "just work", and are a real pain even in Vista. Many people like having a larger monitor for using a laptop at home, and dual-head works really smoothly in OS X. These sorts of things also give you a chance to upsell :D.
You should also have iWork installed on your demo machines. For anyone doing documents, that app is incredibly awesome :D.
--
Andrew